I never knew places like this existed. Matron said I was lucky to be here because this is a Catholic refuge and other girls in my state end up in the workhouse, which, she says, are very unpleasant places and the treatment of the women in them is often cruel and harsh.

“Here”, she said, “they will treat you well and take care of you until you have your baby”.

My room is cold and bare, with an iron bed, a table, a chest of drawers, a large white enamel jug and bowl. On the wall is a big crucifix of Jesus on the cross. I like the cross being there. It makes me feel I’m not so alone.

There are eight other women here, all waiting to have their babies. I spend my days cleaning the refuge or peeling vegetables in the kitchen. When I’m not working I stay in my room and say my rosary. We are forbidden to speak to each other during the day but can talk for one hour in the evening after prayers. But I don’t want to talk to anyone. I feel ashamed. I keep myself to myself.

Why do I dream of the things I can’t have.

Last night it was Cissie’s wedding. I saw everything so clearly.

Father Baker performed her wedding ceremony at the Holy Trinity Cathedral and there were flowers everywhere. Cissie walked down the aisle on Sydney’s arm to the music of the wedding hymn, looking beautiful in a simple white silk dress with a long tulle veil and a spray of orange blossom in her hair. The tots and I were the bridesmaids and we wore pale blue dresses with broad hats trimmed with blue lace and chiffon. Over sixty people attended the service, as well as Dyke’s family and friends and including three of Cissie and Dyke’s children.

After the ceremony everyone went back to Mission House. In the back garden Mammie had arranged for a large booth made of bamboo and coconut leaves to be built and decorated with lignum vitae and pink bougainvillea. This was where all the wedding presents were put before they were unwrapped. There was a table in the garden covered with a white linen table cloth and on it stood the wedding cake with a net over it and pinned in several places.

After the bride, the wedding cake was the centre of interest and the guests had to bid money to uncover the cake. They would try and outbid each other and by the time the cake was uncovered Cissie and Dyke would have several pounds, as well as lots of lovely presents. It was such a happy, noisy day with so much laughter.

I thought about Michael Sales and the pretty earrings he gave me at my leaving party in Kingston and how he said he’d wait for me to return so I could be his girlfriend. But not now… not me Michael. I hope you find someone nice.

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War: Moores and I were in Oxford Street, when the air raid siren went, shopping for a new dress for her date that night with an army officer. We’d just reached John Lewis when it sounded and we knew it meant we were going to be bombed by the Germans. Suddenly people started running like mad in all directions including us. Terrified we hopped onto a bus without even knowing where it was going just to get off the street.

By the time we got back to the hospital we had learnt it been a false alarm, but our relief didn’t last long because we were told that Britain was finally at war with Germany. There’d been lots of talk about war before but I wouldn’t listen.

I don’t want to go home, I want to stay and become a nurse, but I made a promise to Sydney and Mammie so, sooner or later Olga, you’re going to have to leave. Moores and Ethel say I should go; at least I’ll be safe in Jamaica. I told them I was frightened of being bombed, but I don’t want to return home not having achieved anything after spending six months in England, especially as it has cost my brother a lot of money.

A few days later, great big silver barrage balloons hanging from cables were seen in the sky all over London. They were to stop the German bombs from hitting their targets in the city. I thought they looked like big silver elephants. One of our first jobs when we started our training was to put black material over the windows so that at night time no light from the hospital wards could escape and the Germans wouldn’t be able to see London from the air and drop their bombs.

We have all been given a gas mask and Sister Tutor demonstrated how to put it on. You have to thrust your chin forward pulling the black rubber over the face and up over the forehead leaving your eyes peering out from the two holes. There’re horrible smelly things and I tore mine off, I couldn’t breathe with it on.

Then we had to fill out a form so the Government could issue everyone with an identity card.

And now ration books have appeared, although nurses don’t have them because we eat at the hospital. Ethel’s family are poor and she says ration books are a wonderful thing because food is distributed evenly and, poor families like hers, get the same as rich ones like Moores.

But some days I’d be so hungry my mind would start thinking about the food markets back home where you can buy lovely meals very cheaply. I find I’m dreaming of gungo peas soup with large pieces of yam and salt beef, vegetables and lovely dumplings or salt-fish and ackee or chicken with rice and peas and yam with half a boiled plantain. And in the end I just feel hungrier than ever. Now I’ve developed a taste for sugar sandwiches.

Dear Diary

Unhappy news: War doesn’t make any difference to Sister Tutor; she’s still very strict and only has to raise an eyebrow to show her disapproval about something I’ve done or haven’t done.

This morning I broke a thermometer and have to pay 6d out of my wages to replace it. I’m not thinking about the war, all I can think about is passing the exam at the end of the three months.

Moores, Ethel and I test each other whenever we have time and if I get really stuck on something, Joanne helps me. Matron wants to see me. I can’t think what I’ve done wrong.

Later: I couldn’t stop shaking waiting outside Matron’s office. When I entered she told me to sit down and I knew it was bad news. She never tells nurses to sit down, we always have to stand to attention as if we’re on parade like soldiers in the army.

“I have some bad news for you Olga” she said in such a kindly voice it barely sounded like her.

“I’m afraid you cannot go home to Jamaica. Because of the war the Government has banned all non essential travel out of Britain which means you will have to stay until the war ends”

I suddenly burst into tears.

“It’s not so bad really, is it Olga, think how proud your family be will when you do return home as a fully qualified nurse” she said.

Then she sat down beside me and put her arm round my shoulders and I cried even more. I was crying so much partly because Matron was being so kind and calling me Olga, instead of Browney, but also because, although I wanted to stay and finish my training, now I had no choice in the matter, I had to stay and suddenly I had such an urge to see Mammie and my sisters.

“I’m sure the war won’t last long and in the meantime we need you here”.

“Yes Matron, thank you Matron,” I sobbed.

I was still crying as I reached the door to leave and she called out to me.

“Wait, I nearly forgot”. She was holding a sheet of paper in her hand and there was a little smile on her face.

“Congratulations, Browney, you passed your first exam”.

Mammie’s (Becky) Diary

At last, I have been able to talk to Olga on the telephone, not that I could hear very much because the line was poor and crackly and we only had three minutes. The tots and Birdie all managed to say hello and tell her they loved her. At least now I know she’s well and safe, but her place is here at home.

I should have insisted that Sydney brought her back. Lucy was right all along when she said Hitler couldn’t be trusted and had invaded Poland. It’s all very well for people to say that the war between Britain and Germany won’t last long, but how do they know, it could go on longer than the first war. No one knows for sure except God.

There are reports that people are starving in England. Could this be true. Olga starving? The Daily Gleaner says that the predicted bombing hasn’t happened and many who evacuated London when war was declared are returning to their homes. So maybe things will not be as bad as everyone first thought.

Olga says she hasn’t seen Martha for weeks. Why, I wonder? What has been happening between those two? Now I have something else to worry about. There was no mention of anything wrong between them in Olga’s last letter. There wasn’t much of anything really because there was so little to read since most of it had been censored with heavy black ink.

But she has passed an exam we are all very proud of her. I went down to the meat market for the first time for years, just to tell Henry. Olga’s status seems to have gone up a lot already as far as the younger girls are concerned and she has certainly impressed the rest of the family with her resolve to come home a fully qualified nurse. As Birdie says “beats working in a bicycle shop”.

It sounds as if Olga has become very fond of her friend Joanne.

Do you know what I think? I think the hand of God was at work there. He sent Joanne to look after Olga. But even so, we will still continue to pray for Olga’s safety.

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When I asked my mother (Olga) how safe she felt in London during the first part of 1939, she said she wasn’t worried because people felt that war with Adolph Hitler had been averted.

Maybe the previous war was still fresh in people’s minds (after all in 1939 it was less than 20 years since the end of WWI) and that was why they simply couldn’t believe that the world could go through all that devastation again. Personally, had I been in my mother’s shoes, I’d have headed straight back to the safety of Kingston, Jamaica.

The reality for my mother was that war was a heartbeat away and she was in a strange country living with a malevolent, alcoholic aunt and had no idea that world events, personal tragedy and malicious intent would all combine to prevent her from returning home to Jamaica.

(Olga’s Diary Continued)

Dear Diary

Fate steps in: Three days later two things happened one after the other.

First, Sydney got a big discount, bigger than he anticipated, on some bicycles he ordered for the shops and the second thing that happened was that he took ill and was rushed, by ambulance, to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington with appendicitis. Hours later his appendix was out and he was being looked after by Nurse Megan Lloyd who comes from Wales.

My “good old holiday” with Sydney is now being spent sitting by his bed every day in St Mary’s watching the nurses do their work while he sleeps. I noticed that the patients have a great respect for the nurses, which is nice, and, as I like the idea of helping people get well, a plan was beginning to develop that would mean I could stay in London and make Mammie and the family really proud of me.

When I thought the time was right I mentioned to Sydney I would like to become a nurse. His immediate reaction was definitely not, you’re going home with me and no arguing. So I enlisted help. Joanne and Nurse Lloyd. Sydney had taken a shine to Joanne and she pointed out to him the benefits of being a nurse and how it would help our community back home when I returned to Jamaica a fully qualified nurse whose training had been in a big London hospital. It took both of them to persuade Sydney to at least have an interview with Matron at St Mary’s. When AM heard her reaction was disbelief.

“A great hospital like St Mary’s only takes white, middle class young ladies to train as nurses” she told us.

“They would never accept a coloured person so don’t waste your time seeing Matron, just to be told no.”

She was right, but, for the wrong reason. Within five minutes of sitting in Matron’s office she announced I couldn’t study nursing there because I didn’t have a school leaving certificate but suggested we try the smaller St Giles Cottage Hospital in Camberwell.

“You’ll have more success there because not too long ago and before it became a hospital, it used to be a work house and they’re not so particular about their nurses”, AM told me, when Sydney was out of earshot.

We had an interview with Matron at St Giles, and shortly afterwards I was offered a place on a residential three month basic nursing programme, but first I had to have a medical.

Dear Diary

Good news: I’ve been offered a nursing place and the best part of my new job is that I’ll be living in the Nurses’ Home at the hospital so don’t have to live with AM any more. Oh happy days!

I could see Sydney was proud of me and I knew Mammie would be too, in spite of being disappointed that I wouldn’t be going home now. I had to promise Sydney that if war broke out I would come home immediately. He gave me enough money for my fare and to keep me going until I got my first month’s wages which was going to be £2 a month. He also bought all the books I needed for studying, plus three pairs of thick black stockings and my black shoes. The rest of my nurses’ uniform would be provided by the hospital.

The night before Sydney left to go home he took Joanne and me to the theatre to see the Ivor Novello musical, The Dancing Years, and afterwards we had supper in a posh late night restaurant.

If I hadn’t met Joanne I’m not sure I would have chosen to become a nurse, but knowing that she would be close by, helped me to decide and that was a big comfort, not only to me, but to Sydney too, I think. He could reassure Mammie that I had at least one good friend. Sitting at the dining table watching them dance together, I thought wouldn’t it be just perfect if one day Joanne became my sister-in-law.

My Great Aunt Martha was the oldest and not at all like her sisters, Becky and Lucy, either in temperament or looks. She was a short, stout woman with a badly pockmarked face – apparently the result of chicken pox. Every now and again nature produces an offspring that bears little resemblance to either its parents or siblings, well by all accounts, that was Martha Ross. My mother, Olga, told that in the early part of the 1930s Aunt Martha worked as a seamstress at the Drury Lane Theatre in London. Mum told me many times, she didn’t like her Aunt Martha.

Olga’s Diary (Continued)

Dear Diary

The wicked witch: Aunt Martha (AM) being horrible. Very bad tempered. There are two versions of her, the English version in Paddington (the true one) and the Jamaican version, when she’s with Mammie in Kingston (the false one). She still says I’m eating too much and I have to eat less even though I’ve given her nearly all of my money and I don’t think I have enough to last until Sydney comes.

She says I have to pay my way so I must clean the flat and do her washing and ironing. Now she’s treating me like a servant.

“You might as well wash and iron Mr Kitchen’s clothes the same time you do mine” she said.

“I’ll do your chores, because I have the time, but I’m not doing his and if you insist then I’ll write to Mammie and Sydney and tell them what you’re asking me to do” I threatened.

“There’s no need for that, Olga, just do mine”.

Good job done, Olga, a small victory and very nice it feels too. Mr Kitchen is AM’s latest “gentleman friend” and the pair of them go out drinking nearly every night. They always come home drunk and Mr Kitchen usually stays overnight (in AM’s bedroom!) and I hear him creeping out of the front door early in the morning. Mammie and Sydney would be shocked if they knew.

AM is cruel when she’s been drinking. Told me that I would never get a husband.

“No man would find someone as plain and boring as you, Olga, attractive. Where were you when God was handing out the looks”. She’s not a very nice person, you know. I know I’m not as pretty as my sisters, but Mammie says I have other qualities which are more important than looks.

Should have said to her “where were you when God was handing out the looks”. But that would have been unkind too and, anyway, after hearing her give Mr Kitchen a good few slaps with the frying pan the other evening, I stay in my room now when she’s been drinking.

AM had chicken pox when she was a child and to stop her picking at the sores on her face her parents bandaged her hands. But AM still managed to pick them and as a result her face is badly pockmarked. She was teased a lot at school by the other children because of it and Aunt Lucy says that contributed to AM’s “effortless transition from bad tempered child to a cantankerous, mean spirited woman”. Had to look up in the dictionary what cantankerous meant and Aunt Lucy’s got it dead right. AM’s bad tempered and unreasonable.

To keep out of her way I spend a lot of time wandering around London and one day I was walking along Baker Street when this car hooted and when I turned round to see who it was, it was Roy McKenzie from Jamaica. I couldn’t believe it, in fact, I didn’t even know he was in London.

I immediately remembered that day when I was hanging from a tree by my knickers and felt embarrassed when we said hello, even though Aunt Lucy and Mammie had got me down from the tree before he saw me.

“Olga, look at you, you look good, how nice to see you”. He seemed really pleased to see me,

He told me to hop in the car and he took me for a lovely drive around London. He asked me what I was doing in London and how long I was staying. I told him about the dance school and what I’d been doing since I arrived and he told me he ran a gambling and drinking club in London called the Frivolity. He knew I had a good singing voice and asked me to come down and sing at his club now and again. Because I had no money I was tempted. Maybe I’ll pop down one evening I thought to myself, it might be fun.

I asked him if he thought there was going to be a war with Germany and he said he hoped not because it could be bad for his business.

He stopped the car round the corner from Chilworth Street and wrote down the address of the Frivolty on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

He asked me how things were going with Aunt Martha and I just shrugged my shoulders. He took out his wallet, which, by the way, was full of money, and took out one of the notes in it.

“Here, take this, but don’t tell Aunt Martha you’ve got it or she’ll talk you into giving it to her and, definitely, don’t tell her that you’ve seen me. I’ve seen her operating in the Den of Iniquity and I don’t want her in my club.” I looked in my hand and there was a lovely big white £5 note. I hugged him. I told him Sydney would be over soon and would repay him.

“Remember, Olga, anytime you want to earn some money singing, you know where I am now”. And then he was gone. I had such a lovely afternoon with Roy, but most of all it was comforting to know there was someone who would help me if I needed it.

My mother, Olga Browney, arrived in London from Kingston, Jamaica on 1st April 1939 intending to stay only a few months. The plan was that Olga would stay with her Aunt Martha in Paddington. Although in the months before there had been talk of a war between England and Germany, Olga’s mother, Becky, believed that war had been averted, thanks to the Munich Agreement. This was a Pact made between Adolph Hitler and the then British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain whereby Hitler had promised Chamberlain that he would not make any more territorial demands into Europe and so Chamberlain believed that war between the two countries had been averted.

Olga’s Diary (continued)

Dear Diary

“How did you get here?” Aunt Martha asked me incredulously.

She was still in bed even though it was the middle of the afternoon. If it had been Birdie standing at the bottom of her bed instead of me, the reply would have said something smart like “I just flew in on Aggie Burns broomstick”, but I just said lamely,

“I thought you were expecting me”.

“Jesus Christ, what day is it”?

“April 1st” I said, shocked by her blaspheming.

And then she started laughing “Trust you to arrive on April Fool’s Day, Olga”.

I didn’t answer not understanding what she meant, but, I knew she wasn’t paying me a compliment. I was hungry, cold, tired and this was not the welcome I had been expecting.

For a start Aunt Martha should have met me when the S.S. Jamaica Progress docked this morning in London. The Progress is a cargo boat carrying fruit, mainly bananas, and the Royal Mail, but also has room for a few passengers. On this trip there were 12 of us including me and, of course, my chaperone, Mrs Brodie, a friend of the family, who was going to England for a holiday and whom Sydney had asked to keep an eye on me during the trip.

Did he think I might fall overboard?

Anyway, it never occurred to me that Aunt Martha wouldn’t be there and I was very grateful that Mrs Brodie waited with me a for a while, but eventually she said she had to leave. With a confidence I certainly wasn’t feeling I assured her I would be fine on my own. Just in case Aunt Martha didn’t arrive Mrs. Brodie showed me where there was a taxi rank and, checking I had enough money to pay for it, kissed me goodbye and went on her way. Sitting in the waiting room I felt very homesick.

After waiting for her for nearly three hours I decided to take a taxi to Aunt Martha’s home, 23 Chilworth Street, Paddington. I knew she lived on the third floor of a block of flats because last time she was in Kingston she told us at dinner one evening how Londoners were not very friendly. Aunt Martha likes a drink and one day she was in a pub when a lady sitting a few feet away from her became ill. Aunt Martha offered to take her back to her home and discovered that the woman lived in the flat beneath her in Chilworth Street.

As I struggled up the three flights of concrete steps to Aunt Martha’s flat with two heavy suitcases I thought, Londoners are not only unfriendly, they’re unreliable too.

Letter to Mammie, Mission House, Kingston

from

Olga, 23 Chilworth Street, London

Dearest Mammie

I couldn’t sleep last night. When I closed my eyes I saw us all on Kingston docks crying. It was hard saying goodbye, wasn’t it, and Mammie you looked so worried. Fancy Pops coming down as well. It was nice you were both there. I don’t remember ever seeing you together before. And wasn’t Sydney thoughtful and kind making sure I had everything I needed. He told me to be sure to ask Aunt Martha if I need anything and he said he’d be coming to London in two or three months, so I would see him them.

Including me and Mrs Brodie, there were only twelve passengers on the boat, two widow ladies, myself and another single young lady and two married couples, three single men, two were students and the third single man was an engineer. We all got on very well together and made up our own entertainment in the evening with little concerts which we all took part in. I was persuaded to sing a few times and got a very nice round of applause each time. The engineer performed some magic tricks, which sometimes went wrong, but we pretended we hadn’t noticed or else we played card games like gin rummy or canasta while the older people played bridge.

As a matter of fact Mammie, I was invited to sit at the Captain’s table four times during the journey; it’s a great honour, you know and I felt very important. The crossing seemed to go quickly and it was very good until we got close to England and then it rained a lot and the sea was a bit rough.

Aunt Martha has a nice little two bedroom flat and, guess what, I have my own bedroom but you probably know that.

On my first morning here, Aunt Martha brought me breakfast in bed and later on took me to Lyons Corner House which is huge and there are restaurants on four levels. On the ground floor level is the food hall where you can buy different things like ham and cheese, pastries and specially made chocolates, wines, tea and, guess what, coffee and fruit from, guess where? ……Jamaica!

And on the floors above are more restaurants with an orchestra playing in each one. Aunt Martha and I went to the tearoom and she ordered afternoon tea which arrived on delicate china plates with some scones, dainty sandwiches and little cakes. I only had a little bit to eat because I thought it was good manners not to eat all the food in front of us. But I was wrong, I should have eaten more, because AM finished the whole lot.

All the waitresses wore black and white uniforms, Ruby, and AM says their called Nippies, when I asked her why ,she said “because they nip in and out of the tables quickly”. Isn’t that funny? I thought they looked so smart in their uniforms and said to AM that I might change my mind about going to Madame Verschaka’s School of Dance and become a Nippie for a few months.

“I don’t think so dear,” AM said.

“To come all this way from Jamaica and end up as a waitress doesn’t seem such a good idea to me”

Well, at least it’s work, I thought to myself but didn’t say anything. With so many out of work back home I bet lots of people would love a job like that. When the bill came, Aunt Martha said,

The weather has been horrible, cold and wet. One day smog covered the whole of London all day and you could barely see in front of your hand and bus conductors were walking in front of their buses to guide them. I missed Jamaica a lot that day. Aunt Martha says its smoke that comes from factory chimneys and buses. There are signs that Londoners are preparing for war. There are air raid shelters being built and sticky tape is stuck across windows to prevent people being cut by flying glass and splinters when the bombs come. Aunt Martha says it’s difficult to know what to think because one minute the war’s on and the next it’s off.

My favourite place, Mammie, is Regent’s Park Zoo. There are all sorts of animals there, lions, tigers, elephants, monkeys, snakes, beautiful big birds and sweet little birds. Even before I get to the zoo I can hear the lions roaring and the monkeys whooping. I feed the monkeys but you’re not allowed to feed the wilder animals, so I watch the zoo keepers feed the elephants, lions and bears.

And I’ve discovered a beautiful Catholic church called St James’ in Spanish Place, not far from Aunt Martha but, do you know what, I don’t think she goes to church quite so much in London as she does in Jamaica.

I say my prayers every night Mammie and go to mass on Sundays at St James’ . It doesn’t feel the same as the Holy Trinity Cathedral, but I still like it a lot.

Once my Mum (Olga) started to talk about her family to me and what her life was like growing up in Jamaica, she told me about the two biggest scandals in the family (and there were quite a few!). Both were connected with Sydney, the oldest sibling. One scandal was to do with him running off with the family cook whom everyone thought was a witch and mad as a hatter and the other scandal was about him shooting a burglar for which he was charged with manslaughter but acquitted on the grounds of self defense.

Olga’s Diary (Continued)

Dear Diary

Sydney and the Burglar: It’s the middle of the afternoon and, apart from a young woman and an old man, I’m alone in the Cathedral, the only place I know that is peaceful, quiet, and cool. Half my life’s been spent in this church, going to mass, confession, benediction, the stations of the cross. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, Jesus is important to me and I come to church because I want to be close to Him, or, when I want to think, like now. I wonder just how long Sydney and Aggie’s relationship has been going on.

I bet you it started with the robbery that time Sydney was working late in the shop. There was a knock on the door one evening and when Sydney opened it there was a tall, black man, with a handkerchief around the lower half of his face. He pushed Sydney back and forced his way inside and put a gun to Sydney’s face threatening to shoot him if he said a word. Then another man came into the house and started to ransack the place looking for money which Sydney usually kept on the premises, but he couldn’t find any money and said so to the man holding the gun.

This turned the man with the gun’s attention away from Sydney momentarily, so Sydney tried to grab the gun and there was a struggle when suddenly the gun went off and the robber was shot dead. The second man immediately ran from the shop and Sydney called the police who recognised the dead man as Alphonse Williams and said the other man was probably his brother Didnot. Didnot was soon picked up by the police and, because he wasn’t wearing a mask, Sydney easily identified him as the second man.

Sydney was charged with the manslaughter of Alphonse but at the end of the trial was found not guilty because the jury said it was self-defence and the law says a man is entitled to protect himself. And that was that, thought Sydney, although to prevent any further thieving Sydney resorted to Obeah.

I bet that’s where Aggie Burns came in. He pinned bits of red rag and some bird feathers to the front door of the shop. If any would-be thief saw these items. Sydney said it would be enough to deter them from going into the shop. But then strange things started happening. A fire broke out one Sunday afternoon, behind the main shop, in the workshop where bicycles are repaired. Mrs Clarkson, who lives next door, saw a small blaze in the workshop and raised the alarm. The fire brigade arrived very quickly, put out the blaze so not too much damage was done.

And then something else happened that really scared Sydney.

He told us he was walking home one night when he felt warm air on the back of his neck which he described like someone’s hot breath. This happened more than once and Aggie Burns said she had found out that Didnot Williams had set a duppy on Sydney and that an Obeah man must have caught his shadow and now the shadow will do whatever the Obeah man demands. Aggie said the best way to stop the duppy from following Sydney was to carry a piece of chalk and, whenever he felt the hot breath on the back of his neck, Sydney was to make an x on the ground with the chalk, representing the figure ten. Aggie Burns said duppies can only count up to nine and will spend the rest of the night trying to count to x.

Aggie said duppies are clever, but I wasn’t too sure about that if they can’t count any higher than nine. But she said they are because they can do similar things to living people, like talking, laughing, whistling and singing, even cooking. That made me wonder if Aggie Burns was a duppy too. Anyway, believe it or not, putting a cross on the ground worked for a while and Sydney stopped feeling warm air on his neck and he was more confident walking home.

But then one lovely clear moonlit night Sydney and Ruby were walking home together and they saw a big owl sitting in the cotton tree outside Mission House. When Aggie heard she got everybody worked up again and said that was a very bad sign because the duppy was still on Sydney. She said he had now to find a powerful Obeah man to remove the curse or he would be in serious trouble.

Of course, Aggie Burns knew one and Sydney agreed to go with her but made me go with him as well. I said I’d only go if Dolly could come as well. And reluctantly he and Dolly agreed.

So off I go again to another balm yard and went into a very dark, smelly room. I remember it only had one window and the light couldn’t get through it was so dirty and grimy. Oh, Lord, was I terrified.

The Obeah man’s name was Ali Acquabar, an old man, with a short sharp looking face. He sat at a table in the middle of the room and beside his chair was a walking stick with the head of a serpent on the top. He told us to sit in the chairs facing him. I noticed a nail with three different size rosaries made out of bloodstained beans hanging from it and there was a mirror on a wall. On the table was a pack of cards and a dark blue piece of cloth with some sulphur, what looked like human hair, small bones and feathers.

By now I just wanted to get out of there but, once again, my courage failed me and I stayed. There were two other chairs and on one of these he put a glass and filled it with water and put a 1/- piece in the glass and on the other he put a candle which he had taken from a small bag nearby and asked Sydney to light it. Ali then opened a pack of cards, which he separated into four piles.

He selected one and said to Sydney “this is death”; then selected another and said “this is Jesus Christ”;

Then he selected a third and said “this is the Ghost” and with the fourth card he looked Sydney straight in the eye and said “Your life is in danger”. Then he took a bottle of rum off a shelf and threw some of it around the room.

“I am feeding my ghosts” he chanted and then looked in the magic mirror and turned to Sydney. “It is a pity you are not able to see, if you could, you would behold two duppies who are working on the case against you”. My brother is a tough man, you now, and I didn’t think he could scare easily. But, sitting on that chair, he looked very frightened to me. Ali looked in the glass of water on the other chair and said

“It is the brother that is after your life. I charge you £5 to take off the ghosts”. Sydney gave Ali his money and Ali told him they would all have to go to Mission House and “to run the duppies out”. Well, we trooped out and walked home.

When we got there Ali told us he would go into the house first and Dolly, Aggie and I should follow in a few minutes but Sydney was to wait outside until he was called. When we went in Ali had already lit three different colour candles in our hallway and then he took out three bottles – one containing some seeds, one with some kind of powder in it and the third with some dirty looking liquid in it. He threw some of the liquid and some of the powder into a cup which Aggie had handed him and he struck a match, lit the mixture in the cup and gave it to Aggie to take outside and bury it at the gateway to the house. Ali then asked Sydney for a further £5 as the job was now completed. The potion was buried at the gateway and this would ensure that no more duppies bothered anyone who lived in this house.

After that Sydney was more relaxed because one Obeah man had been knocked out by another and the more I think about it the more sure I am that was when things started to happen between our cook Aggie and Sydney.

When I was a child my mother, Olga, used to tell me that her family practiced witchcraft (Obeah) in Jamaica, but I didn’t believe her. Being a good Catholic girl, I didn’t countenance such ‘mumbo jumbo’!

After Emancipation in 1834 the Government made Obeah illegal and it was hoped that it would be wiped out – but it just continued in secret, pretty much like when my mother was living in Jamaica in the 1920s and 1930s, and probably still continues today. It’s deep rooted in the black and coloured Jamaican’s heritage and culture and even though you might come across a family that is both Christian and well educated, the likelihood is that someone in it will be dabbling in Obeah, like my family!

She’s put a spell on him: Later Mammie told us why Sydney had stormed out of the house when he told us he was going to live with Aggie Burns. He called Mammie a hypocrite and said it was ok for her to live with a black man and cause huge misery and pain, not only for her parents, but also her sisters and children, of course, he meant Vivie and Aunt Martha.

Mammie replied that at least she and Pops had got married and anyway she didn’t think Aggie was the right person for him.

Sydney was in such a rage, Mammie said she was too frightened to say anything more to him. She told us that Sydney had been right about her objections to Aggie Burns because she was black.

“I experienced such hatred from people I never dreamt could behave in such an ugly manner and I don’t want any of my children to go through the treatment I received nor do I want Sydney’s children turning on him one day because of their colour.

“We’re not all prejudice like some of the others” dear Pearl told Mammie.

But Mammie’s convinced that Aggie Burns has put a spell on Sydney to make him fall in love with her. That’s the only explanation she says.

She’s the woman we go to for herbal remedies sometimes when we were ill. Well, as everyone knows, she also practises Obeah and Mammie wants Annie to work Obeah on Sydney to make him come home.

But I was worried about us going there because the punishment for practising Obeah is very harsh if you are caught by the police. It can be 20 lashes and a prison sentence of six months, with hard labour, if you are found guilty and even if you’re a woman.

I tried to talk Mammie out of it, but she was determined to go.

Annie Harvey makes quite an impression and is still a very striking woman in her white turban and red cloak. I was surprised when I saw her house, it’s rather nice, with a little white fence and pretty flowers in the garden. The sort of house I’d like myself one day. Anyway, Annie took us out to a shack in the backyard. Inside it was dark, and it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust before I could see properly. You couldn’t see a single bit of the ceiling because there were dried herbs hanging from it everywhere.

There were wooden shelves on one side of the room with different sized coloured bottles and some were full of liquid, but others only half full. I recognised some zinc powder and ingredients for making a “medicine bath” and poultices. There was also a tin of Epsom salts sitting on one of the shelves, which I thought strange, because we have that at home.

There was another shelf with some pimento leaves and pieces of logwood bark, bird feathers, broken egg shells and some ashes. Cassie told me later she saw a chicken’s foot and a lizard’s tail.

Mammie explained to Annie Harvey that she wanted Sydney to return to the family. He had deserted us in favour of a bad woman who was a danger to him.

“We wanted to protect him from this evil woman who has cast a spell on him and taken him away from us” said Mammie to Annie.

Annie Harvey left the shack for a minute and when she returned she was holding a bunch of green leaves which she put into a wooden bowl and with a small piece of wood, rounded at the end; then she pounded the leaves together until they turned into a thick green paste.

Then she sprinkled some ashes into the paste and from a small blue bottle around her neck she sprinkled just two drops of a dark brown liquid into the mixture and then mixed it up again. Each time she mixed the paste she talked in a strange language that none of us had heard before. She covered the paste with some muslin cloth and then wrapped it in brown paper and tied it up with string and told Mammie to put it in Sydney’s food and he would come home.

On the way home, Mammie said we were going to stop at the Holy Trinity Cathedral to offer prayers to Jesus to pray for Sydney’s return and when I asked why after having just come from the balm yard, she said she was covering all options.

When we got home Mammie said she was sure Cassie would tell Aggie Burns that she had been to Annie Harvey’s balm yard and worked Obeah on him.

“It won’t be long before Sydney comes homes, but, in the meantime, Olga, you’re going to have to put the paste into Sydney’s food.”. I knew it.

When Annie Harvey gave Mammie the paste, I thought to myself, guess who’s going to have to do that little job Olga”.

“I can’t do it, I’ll get caught” I told her.

“Choose your time, when he’s out, make a nice sandwich for him, his favourite, pork with apple and ginger. Spread the paste in between the slices of meat or mix it in with the apples.

Sydney was expecting a shipment of bicycles to arrive from London the next day and fortunately for me the paper work was not in order, so he had to spend hours down on the docks sorting it out so by the time he got back to the shop he was ravenously hungry. I produced the sandwiches each filled with thick juicy pieces of pork, sliced apple, ginger and the paste and he just gobbled the sandwiches and, obviously, never tasted anything unusual.

Mammie was so happy when I told her. Oh I do hope it works, with all our wages going into the household pot, we have hardly anything to spend on ourselves and Sydney has a whole heap of money, tons of it, he’s just being nasty by making us suffer.

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Why I Wrote ”Olga – A Daughter’s Tale”

In 1994, my mother, Carmen Browne, was admitted to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton in the UK seriously ill. As she slowly recovered I realized that had she died so too would the chance of my finding out about her past, her family in Jamaica and, of particular importance to me, who my father was information she had consistently refused to share with me. So I decided to find out for myself.

My first discovery was that my mother’s real name was Olga Browney, born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and one of eleven children from a close-knit, coloured Catholic family. A kind, naïve and gentle girl, my mother arrived in London in 1939 and lived with a malevolent, alcoholic aunt, intending to stay for only six months. However, world events, personal tragedy and malicious intent all combined to prevent her from returning home to Kingston.

"Olga - A Daughter's Tale" is based on a true story about cruelty, revenge and jealousy inflicted on an innocent young woman and about moral courage, dignity, resilience and, in particular, love. It is the story of a remarkable woman, who because of circumstances, made a choice, which resulted in her losing contact with her beloved family in Jamaica, until nearly half a century later, when her past caught up her.

What I discovered about my mother filled me with such admiration for her that I wanted her story recorded for future generations of my family to read so that they would know about this remarkable woman whose greatest gift to me was her unconditional love. That's why I wrote “Olga – A Daughter’s Tale”.